We can acknowledge that male and female brains have differences in structure and function, on average, without subscribing to the belief that one sex is better than the other.
Even if we were to neglect the thousands of studies documenting the effects of prenatal testosterone on the developing brain, we can look no further than the largest neuroimaging study examining sex differences to date, published just last year in Cerebral Cortex. In a sample of 5,216 brains, the study found significant differences between the sexes. The amygdala, a region associated with appraising emotion, was larger in men, even when men’s larger overall brain size was taken into consideration
James Damore and the Google memo also receive mentions as further evidence of “neurosexism,” when the truth is, as several of us have said before, Damore was correct to cite biologically-based sex differences in occupational interest as the reason why we don’t see a 50:50 ratio of women in tech.
Eliot’s article ends with two claims that should leave neuroscientists and anyone with a cursory understanding of evolutionary biology, speechless: “The brain is no more gendered than the liver or kidneys or heart,” (sex differences have been observed in each one of these organs)